


Origins

by transdrongo (slimepop)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, its sad but then its not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 00:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11772054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slimepop/pseuds/transdrongo
Summary: “How’d you choose your name?”Junkrat doesn't remember where he got his name.





	Origins

**Author's Note:**

> uh so like i havent written in forever but yeah  
> this is sad at first but the ending is nice i promise

“How’d you choose your name?”

Roadhog’s book lowered to his lap as he turned to face Junkrat. His mask didn’t tell much, but Rat knew him well enough to get that he needed to explain further.

“Y’know, when’d you pick it and why y’did and all that.” 

The two sat together in their current camp, a worn down shed near a toppled down house. The fact it even existed told them that they were, ever so slowly, getting closer to civilization.

“You already know that.” Hog answered, although he wouldn’t be surprised if Rat had forgot. The kid had the memory of a goldfish.

“No, not that one!” Rat crawled himself over to sit criss cross directly in front of his partner, continuing, “Your real one.”

The enforcer wasn’t given a moment to consider the question before Rat was talking again, “I picked mine a while back, before I lost my arm. I mean, I always thought’a myself as Jamie? Dunno, it was just always there. Probably heard it when I was a little tyke or something.”

Mako’s book slowly closed before he set it to the side, his mask not turning from his partner as he took in the information. He’d never considered that Rat wouldn’t know where his name came from, but with how young he’d been when the crisis happened, it made sense. He couldn’t deny that the realization stung, though. Jamie was so young that with everything else that was taken, so was the origin of his name. God, if Jamie really even was his name. Rat was right, he could have picked it up anywhere.

“But I was looking through some scrap and I found a bottle, and y’know I usually just toss those ‘cause they’re useless, but this one said ‘Jameson’ on it! And I liked that, so I thought, ‘I’m Jamie, right? Why not just shove those together,” he pretended to squeeze the words between his hands, “and make me Jamison! It’s a lot more ‘professional’ than Jamie, not that I care about that stuff. But when them suits hear me on the news, they gonna hear ‘Jamison Junkrat!’, and that sounds cooler, don’ it?”

Rat’s rambling cut off for a moment to let in a high pitched cackle, his hands flying down to hit the sand in a show of his own amusement.

Looking back up at Hog’s mask, Rat took his silence as a sign to keep going.

“And well, Fawkes is easy,” he tittered, clearing his throat before putting on his overdramatic ‘King Jamison’ accent, “Who the Fawke is Jamison Fawkes?”

He’d hardly finished before he was smacking at the sand again, nearly snorting as he squealed with laughter.

Like most of Rat’s humor, it was immaturely funny, and Mako wished he could find it as amusing he seemed to. Instead, it just hurt.

He’d found himself long used to the guilt, able to block it off with time. But since finding himself with Junkrat, he’d gained a daily reminder of what he’d done.

_It wasn’t his fault._

_He couldn’t have known._

_He’d only been trying to help._

Those thoughts never reassured him, no matter how many times he repeated them to himself.

They were empty, because it didn’t matter. Intentions didn’t matter. He’d done this. He’d ruined everything, and now he had a living reminder glued to his side at all times.

The kid deserved better. 

“…-and I never use it ‘cause Junkrat’s cooler, but y’know how it is!”

He was pulled back into the moment as he realized Rat was still talking, but his boss seemed to have already noticed something was off.

“Oi, Roadie, anybody home?” he asked, climbing his way into his lap to grasp at his mask. Nose pressed to the mask’s snout, he went on, “Y’alright in there, mate?”

Hog sighed as he took Rat in hand to sit him on his lap. 

“Didn’t choose my name, Jamie.”

Rat had no time to process the situation before Hog was talking, thankfully keeping him from jumping into an impromptu wrestling match or whatever other reaction to the touch would have sparked.

A blank face twisted into that of confusion as Rat sunk himself down to lay over Roadhog’s lap, watching the eyes of his mask closely.

“What’d’ya mean, then who did?” 

“My parents. Gave it to me when I was born.”

Rat gave a quizzical look, propping himself up on his elbows to get closer to his enforcer.   
“Why they giving it to you? It's your name.” he questioned, eyebrows furrowed as he squinted into the lenses of Mako's mask. 

“That's just.. how it works.” 

The look on Rat's face was unreadable. Blank. And for once, he was silent as he pondered the information.

“So my parents... They gave me 'Jamie'..?”

Hog didn't answer. He didn't know how to. But Jamie didn't need one.

“Don't remember 'em. Don't remember nothing.” 

Mako wished he would stop. It was selfish, he knew that, but fuck, this hurt. The fact that he was the reason Jamie spent his life alone, left to fend for himself. The reason Jamie lost his limbs, his hair, his memory. The reason Jamie became Junkrat. This was his fault.

He sighed, dropping his head back on Mako's thigh to look up at the sky through the crumbled roof of their shed. There were no stars. There never were. 

The two shared a long silence. Mako had so many regrets. He imagined the life Junkrat could have had. God, he was brilliant. People tended to think he was stupid, but they both knew better. Junkrat was a genius. He didn't need to read or write fluently to make intricate explosives, to leave destruction in his path, to survive an apocalypse. 

Imagine what he could have been if he was given the chance. The kid could have gone so far. 

But instead he was here, in a broken down shed in the middle of the Australian outback, on his way to civilization for the first time. 

To blow it to the ground.

“I don' want to remember. Would just make me sad.” Junkrat broke the silence, “Don' need to remember. Doesn't matter.”

Then we was looking up at Mako, and he could swear the rat was staring right through his mask, staring at the person he tried so hard to hide behind it.

Jamie was smiling.

“Jus' need to remember all this.” His words were heartfelt, and it was so different to see the 'Mad Bomber' speaking so seriously.

“The life I coulda had? Woulda been boring, I bet. I don't wanna be some civvy suit. I like this a whole much better, Roadie.” 

Mako's heart felt as if it had stopped beating. He didn't move, or blink, and for a moment, his mind was completely blank.

And then he was so relieved.

“Like this better too, Rat.”


End file.
